Substances, for example macromolecules, in whole blood are usually captured or transformed specifically.
For example it is required that the blood corpuscles are initially separated from the plasma which is then treated separately for the removal of said macromolecules. Then, said plasma is filtered in further separate steps to remove possible remaining harmful substances, whereafter said plasma is finally rejoined with said blood corpuscles and fed back to the source for said whole blood.
If a rapid process is desirable, said separation is performed through plasmapheresis based on a centrifuge step. A more simple process is however realized, if said separation of whole blood is performed by means of a microporous, semipermeable membrane filter.
Irrespective if said separation of whole blood is realized through centrifuging or by means of a microporous, semipermeable membrane filter, two separate pumping systems are required in this known technique for the realization of said process, i.e. a pumping system for said whole blood and a pumping system for said plasma. The reason for this inconvenience is primarily that said process necessarily must be divided into more separate steps, as described hereinabove.
An object of the present invention thus is therefore to avoid said inconvenience in the known technique and to provide a process which does not require a dividing into separate steps for the treating of and/or removal of substances from the liquid, especially whole blood, and which therefore does not require two pumping systems.
Another object is to provide a device and a membrane for the realization of said process.
A further object is to provide a process for the immobilizing of biologically active material on and/or in such a membrane.
Other objects and advantages of the present invention will be apparent from the following description.